First there is my shell, my skin, my trace. Around me it is what you think of me, how you feel about me, and what others have told you about me. Can all that be neglected and forgotten? You see and experience my work of art through a prism of all that you already know about me. Before you read the contents you look at the envelope. I am not anybody from anywhere, I am an envelope. Finnish, German, Slovenian, French, Canadian, Czech – these are the envelopes.

I Am an Envelope, a performance by an international improvisational cast from six countries, directed by Matthieu Loos, is the opening performance of the Naked Stage festival. It is an evolution of an idea and approach that took shape at the Our Lives festival in Berlin in March with a performance called 28 which included 28 performers from 28 European Union countries. Whether they liked it or not they carried labels and representations of countries they came from. They could utilise those for a big celebration of diversity, or they tried to escape the label and simply make a human connection.

A childhood in the 1970s Prague was quite different from a childhood in West Berlin. Growing up in Ljubljana in the 80s was quite different than growing up on the border between Germany and France. Then those childhoods, when they are no longer childhoods but deep memories and key components of adults, meet at a festival in one of small European cities. They compare each other, laugh and cry at their fundamental differences and their eternal familiar similarities, process each other and take the stage.

Within the Our Lives project, Michaela Puchalková focuses on life's milestones. Working with an international cast she has been developing methods of translating personal memories into stage material. The source of inspiration is very individual and intimate for each perfomer, but when it is translated into a physical stage situation it becomes a playground for collective processing. In her performance at the Naked Stage, Mihaela Puchalková continues her exploration of working with personal memories in an international aspect, but this time she focuses exclusively on childhood.

​Legendary performance Your 15 Minutes of Fame by a charismatic Canadian artist had a world premiere at the Naked Stage Festival in 2005. After thirteen years of successful international tours it is coming back to its birthplace, where it will come to life with greater performing maturity. It is a sparkling performance, where the topmost improviser Lee White invites spectators with no theatre experience on stage and together with them creates touching and witty stories. The show, which gets its inspiration also from the works of Stephen McIntyre and his Theatre X, bases its idea on two principles: each one of us has a wonderful ability of spontaneous storytelling and all rules of improvisation have to be questioned.

Lee White is a world renowned theatre artist – performer, director and teacher. A Canadian, who lives in Berlin and spends a lot of his time on tours in Europe, Asia and North America. He is especially famous for the duo Crumbs in which together with Stephen Sim they have been co-creating the trends of contemporary improvisational theatre for more than 15 years. He has been involved in the birth of several new formats such as The Big Smart Improv Show and Knowledge and Punishment, the Improv/Game show. He has been collaborating in many international productions, namely in No Exit with Marko Mayerl and Matthieu Loos, in Paradigm together with Joe Bill and in Sincerely Yours with Maja Dekleva Lapajne and Hannu Risku.

Friday, November 23 at 7pm: Invitation to Dance (instead of Here You See)

The performance is in English. The performance will be limited to 30 audience members.

Just as you wish you could invite someone from across the dance floor to a dance and figure out, in that compressed time of one song, what lingers between you and how for a moment you meet in celebration of life, you can wish to meet someone on stage and let the resulting content flow freely.

International improvisers will invite each other and members of the audience to short sparkling impro encounters. Everyone present on the evening’s playground can embark upon researching a contact. They can sincerely decline the performer’s invitation to a “dance” or accept it and venture into wonderful landscapes of the unknown.

The Invitation to Dance is an event especially designed for this year’s Naked Stage that centres on the theme of connection. It toys with the roles of the performer and the observer, and forefronts relations that weave between everyone involved. In this case the short but sweet, clumsy or focused close encounters between performers and audiences take place on stage.

The event replaces the originally scheduled performance Here You See by Berlin-based artist Christoph Jungmann who unfortunately had to cancel his participation at the Naked Stage festival due to health issues.

The Japanese sound for brushing teeth is an American slang word for sex: »Did you guys chaka chaka yet?«. Now it’s also the name of a European improvised performance focused on physical connection and musicality. Chaka Chaka.

The cast is a combination of many duos : Alenka and Matthieu have met brushing their teeth in silence on one of the French stages. Chaka Chaka. Years later they accidentally caused a festival paper-snowfight in Ljubljana. Chaka Chaka. Julie and Hannu met around a Slovenian blackboard before drawing unforgettable diagonals in Scandinavia. Chaka Chaka. Matthieu and Julie also share two French kids. So let's Chaka Chaka!

In 2016, the Czech puppetry was added to the UNESCO list of world cultural heritage. Since then the Czech puppeteers have dispersed around the world trying to make a living with their cultural-heritage-trademarked work. Dubious quality of many performances has prompted the Czech Ministry of Culture to start a hunt for travelling puppeteers. Beware of the puppeteer hunters!

This is the introduction to the performance written by its creator Ladislav Karda, a Czech artist who studied alternative and puppet theatre in Prague. In his work he combines improvisational theatre and puppets. He is active in collectives Just!Impro, Teapacks and 20000 Jews Under The Sea, and teaches improvisation at the ImproSchool organisation in Prague. Recently, he is especially interested in working in non-theatrical spaces which is why his sweet midnight miniature at the Naked Stage is performed by the bar of Menza pri koritu.

A playful attack on atmospheres of love and violence. An exquisite and daring cooperation between three closely connected performers from different cultural and theatrical backgrounds. Diving deep into exploring love relationships, they use humour and cruelty to give life to dark and beautiful atmospheres.

Lee and Maja first met in 2003 at the Impro Festival in Berlin. That is when Maja realized her passion for improvisation will last for many years to come. Since then she also kept finding coins in her shoes every now and then. Because of their encounter Lee has learnt to love Ligretto. And has been voting for communists ever since. Hannu and Maja first met in 2007 at the Inspinazie Impro Festival in Leuven. Since then Hannu's second home is Ljubljana. That was when he learnt the bitter truth that he is not unbeatable in staring contests. Because of their meeting Maja developed a secret desire to be an impro musician. Finnish porridge became a part of her life. Lee and Hannu first met in 2014 at the Impro Festival in Berlin and got caught up in a strange situation where they already knew so much about each other but have never met before. Sincerely Yours is playing with the obvious and the hidden while the bizarrness of the personal is being transformed into a true fiction.

An evening of impish improvised singing, toying with song formats, music competitions, popular music styles, obvious or overdone representations of countries and self-endulgent jamming. A cute rather than refined presenter duo from Winnipeg and Kranj will guide an international cast of improvisers and the audience through provocative landscapes of an instant music show. The author of the winning song in the first part of the performance will be awarded with the honour to spontaneously direct the second part, choosing as their basic format anything from opera, musical, troubadour lyrical tales or deep personal confessions. A hedonistically playful theatrical-musical evening. An autumn night in Kranj.

Sunday, November 25 at 8pm: Last Wish

Venue: ​Stara mestna elektrarna - Elektro Ljubljana

Concept and directing: Maja Dekleva LapajnePerformers: Alenka Marinič, Ladislav Karda, Lee White, Matthieu Loos, Michaela Puchalková, Peter Frankl, Sara Šoukal, Vanda Gabrielova, Vid SodnikMusic: Goran Završnik, Hannu RiskuLights: Borut CajnkoThe performance is in English.​At the bitter-sweet end of the festival all ensemble members and the audience meet one last time. This time after days of intense work – performances, rehearsals, workshops, discussions and evening get-togethers. Many a word has been said but not every word. A lot has happened and yet certain possibilities are still up in the air. Many a wish has been fulfilled, yet some have not even been expressed yet. At the final festival performance visiting artists will have an opportunity to express their wishes regarding what they still desire to experience on this stage with this particular cast and with this particular audience in this particular space and time. The rest will do their best to fulfil these wishes. It’s now or never.